Warmth in the Cold
by Azdgari
Summary: Toothless and Hiccup land in the snowy mountains of Berk... mischief ensues! Toothless POV, high cuteness factor. Probably a oneshot.


**Before anyone goes YARR YOU REVIEW *promiscuous woman* YOU MADE THIS SEPARATE, I decided to keep the other fic as a collection of scenes from the movie. Originals will be separate. Enjoy!**

_For the love of the skies, it seems like it snows nine months around here… and hails the other three! _I complained to myself as Hiccup and I carved the peculiar shape of a Dragon and rider through the cascades of falling snow.

We'd been taking more and more ambitious flights. After our first test flight, Hiccup had more than proved himself to me as a capable navigator. Honestly, after making it out of that maze of rocks I felt pretty much invincible; all of our other excursions had been smooth sailing in comparison. This was our farthest one yet; we were surrounded by the sprawling, white tipped mountains of Northern "burck" as Hiccup called it.

Aaaah, Hiccup. My little Viking. My awkward, goofy, smart-yet-supid little Viking. We'd gone from prey and predator to predator and prey to cautious partners to real friends. That little seed of affection planted when he most charitably deigned not to kill me had sprouted into a close companionship. To me, Hiccup was sort of the little brother I never had. Sure, I spent plenty of our time together rolling my eyes as he tried to descend through an updraft, or saving his skinny Viking butt from the Gronckle he just inadvertently ticked off. But… he felt like family to me. We understood each other, and like I've mentioned before we're similar in a lot of ways… our stubbornness, playfulness, curiosity, and when needed, courage. For all his jumpiness and that "I think I just wet myself" expression he always carries around, when the time comes, Hiccup is one plucky little Viking.

Courage. Definitely takes some of that to be perched precariously on top of a rapidly moving Dragon executing complicated maneuvers hundreds of feet above ground in a snowstorm.

And it _was_ a snowstorm. With each passing second the blustering sheets of snow grew denser. For my weathered Dragon eyes, it was no problem. Unfortunately, Hiccup's eyes were not of the same mettle. _How lucky I was to be born a Dragon!_ I thought to myself perhaps for the thousandth time since meeting Hiccup.

"I think we better bring it down, buddy!" Hiccup called through the arctic dervish. "I can't see a thing!" I was ever reluctant to leave my native habitat, but Hiccup and I were a team. If he needed to land, we needed to land. That was that.

With a few deft machinations of those dexterous legs of his, he angled us downwards. I extended my wings, catching a slight downdraft and regulating our descent. The wind whipped the fat snowflakes into my wings, enveloping them in a pallid, nippy coat. As gently as possible, I navigated us into a clearing in between two of the towering mountains.

_Oh, what's the fun in 'gently'?_ I asked myself mischievously. Without even a warning glance back at Hiccup, I retracted my wings to my chest, putting us into free fall for the last fifty odd feet of our descent. "Woah, woah, woahwoahwoah Toothless! Toothless, what are you doing!" Hiccup's wails of panic were quickly drowned out by the sound of air rushing past my ears.

_3… 2… 1…_ POOMF!

I plunged face first into a snow bank, the velocity driving me a couple feet into it. _Chilly!_ I made an effort to extricate my head from the snow bank's clutches, but I appeared to be stuck. _Well, I guess this is pretty much wholly my fault, now isn't it?_ I thought to myself sagely . Bracing with my legs, I pulled with all my strength… and with an explosion of powdery snow, I was free. I shook my head, sending flurries of snow dancing through the air.

Now let's get this straight: I like snow well enough. Back where I was a wee hatchling we got a dusting every so often. I used to like playing in it, clearing the space near our nest with neat little pyro-blasts. But I'd never seen snow like they have here in Burck. Entire feet of the stuff! It takes some getting used to.

_Hiccup?_ I looked around for him, but for all I could see I was alone in the white world. _Wait.._. A telltale trail of ditches in the snow winded over to a remarkably Hiccup-esque hole in the snow. I giggled guiltily; from the looks of it he'd been thrown off me like a rag doll upon impact with the ground. Dazed, Hiccup slowly rose to his feet.

"TOOTHLESS!" He hollered in somewhat righteous anger. "What were you… I.. I could've been _killed…_" I smiled innocently. "I, you could've, I, toothless, I should, you _useless reptile_, I, Toothless you…!" he descended into a stream of gibberish. When his words finally failed him (Pff, _that's_ a first), he lifted up a chunk of snow and hurled it at me. In all honestly I had zoned out, waiting for his angry tirade to be over, so I was unprepared for his retaliation; the frosty projectile hit me square in the face. There's that same aim that brought me down so long ago.

It goes without saying I couldn't let this indignity go unpunished! I gnashed my teeth; my more pyrotechnic Dragon talents weren't suited to this situation. While I briefly mulled over how best to exact my revenge, he drilled me in the ear with another ball of snow. The nerve of him! I'll give him some of his own medicine! I reached down into the snow with my paws and attempted to pack it into a sphere the way he had. Unfortunately, four claws just aren't optimal tools for packing snowballs. Frustratingly, I just seemed to slice through the snow I was trying to pack. My frustration mounted as I felt another snowball pelt my back scales, and my blood pressure started cooking when I overheard Hiccup's victorious laughter. Looking up angrily I saw he had dropped to the ground, guffawing at my vain efforts.

_Okay, you're asking for it!_ I growled, pawing at the snow the way a bull paws at the dirt before it charges. Hiccup's eyes briefly grew to dinner plate proportions before he began spitting out a steady stream of apologies and excuses. "No Toothless… down boy! Down boy! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! The one that hit your ear slipped, I swear, no, Toothless!" I crossed the distance between us with a few bounds and plucked him off the ground, carrying him well into the air in my paws. _Yeah, now who's laughing?_ With a smug bark of triumph, I whipped him back down into a snow bank. I glided back onto the ground just in time to see him dig his way out of the snow bank indignantly. "Oh, you're _such_ a comedian, Toothless," he muttered grumpily. I nodded my head enthusiastically before approaching him in a swaggerful victory-strut.

"Yeah, yeah, boy…" he grumbled, shaking off the snow. Shivering, he hugged himself. "Getting sorta nippy out here…" he murmured through the falling snow. I let out a short growl of concern. If we couldn't fly out in the snow, we would need to find some shelter. I gazed around, looking for a cave or grotto in the mountains where we could seek refuge. My keen eyes picked out a cave carved out of a mountain only a few hundred feet to our right. With a motion of my head, I explained I'd found shelter. He nodded thankfully, then followed me as I guided him through the near-whiteout. As Hiccup blindly followed me through the snowstorm, I appreciated yet again the depth of his trust in me. He put his life in my hands each time he flew with me… and I put my life in his. Our bond ran deeper than your average friendship; we truly depended on each other.

After a few minutes' hike, we found ourselves in the mouth of the cave, saved from Mother Nature's wintry wrath. The sun was beginning to set, the breathtaking wash of twilight colors just barely visible through the falling snow. "Looks like we're in here for the night," Hiccup sighed , taking a moment to brush all the snow off him. There was no point in me doing the same; even though it could get stuck in my scales, my fiery body temperature made quick work of it.

Curious, I loosed a blast into the cave to get a look at how big it was. It looked like it went back about fifty feet, and it was about as tall as a me-and-a-half. Not too big… but cozy. I've passed the night in worse places… maimed on that canyon floor foremost on the list.

I noticed Hiccup's shivers. With a keen of concern, I swung my head over and examined him. Somewhat guiltily I realized it was probably my fault he was so cold, having dumped him in a snow bank and all. Knowing I had to make it up to him, I led him back to the end of the cave, farthest from the outside elements. With a sustained stream of purple-red fire, I got some semblance of a blaze going on the floor. "Thanks, Toothless," Hiccup said gratefully. _Oh, don't thank me yet, big guy._ I laid down next to the fire, and with a wing, swept the feet out from under Hiccup and hugged him close to me so he could share the warmth of the fire in my belly.

"Oof! Toothless!" he grunted in surprise. _Yup!_ I thought to myself happily. _Snuggles!_ Really a rather sweet and appreciative smile spread across Hiccup's face. "Thanks, buddy. You make a good furnace in a pinch!" _I do my best,_ I replied with a low purr.

Maybe it's just because I'm a Dragon, but I'll always love fire. The flickering light and shadow, the dancing sparks, the wild, untamed crackle and pop… We both stared into the heart of the flames for a while. I'm not sure, but I'll bet we were both thinking of the same thing. About our forbidden friendship and what it would mean in the future. Could a Dragon and a Viking be friends? Would our races ever understand each other?

Before I'd met Hiccup, I would have stared at whatever Dragon had asked the question as it he had a third wing protruding from his you-know-where. The general consensus among my people was that humans were pretty much just brutes who attacked anything with wings and scales. I'm pretty sure Hiccup had thought the inverse, given the way he shot me down (have I mentioned that bitterly enough times yet?)

And yet we'd both found exceptions to the rules we made. With empathy, patience, and more than anything else simply _giving it a chance,_ a Dragon and a Viking were the two best friends that anyone could have.

I felt Hiccup's head fall to rest against my chest; I glanced down to see him eyes shut, fast asleep. With a smile he had taught me, I wrapped my wings around him, forming a warm Dragon-cocoon for him to spend the night in. _Good night, Hiccup. Don't let the Nadders bite!_ With a yawn, I laid my heavy head to rest on my forelegs and let my mind drift off into strange and wonderful dreams.

**This one was a lot of fun to write and I hope it's a lot of fun to read! If you enjoyed it, feel free to leave a comment or fave it; it means the world to me! Thanks for reading! ^^**


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